Kakuzu: Origins
by TheReaperOfRainbows
Summary: Even when his family dies, Kakuzu believes that he can still make a difference by joining Takigakure's militia.But things go awry quickly and plunge him into a world which is drastically different from the one he knew. He is now forced to murder people to survive, escape from assassins, and become a member of the most ruthless organization to exist. This is Kakuzu's origin.


"We are quite sorry, General Taishou, but we have confirmed that your brother and his spouse were reported deceased via homicide this afternoon at exactly 7:32 p.m. Since you are his only remaining living relative, I therefor award you custody of their son, Daishou Kakuzu, until he reaches the legal age of…"

The death of Otokooya and Reidou Daishou was devastating to almost everyone who knew them in Takigakure, except for one man who found it more of an annoyance than anything. That man was General Taishou Hakui, Daishou Otokooya's brother and their son's uncle. Sure, he was good acquaintances with both his brother and his brother's wife, but he really wasn't too fond of children. Younger children, to be exact. He just found them more annoying than when his soldiers would not obey the very orders he gave them. Which is why he was more annoyed than morose when he found out he was to look after the Daishou child, Kakuzu.

He wasn't really much to look at, thought General Taishou as he examined his nephew a few hours after the discovery of the Daishou's death. He was tall for a child in his seventh year, one hundred and fifty-three centimeters or so, average build, wearing rather simple clothing in General Taishou's opinion. Short dark brown hair adorned his head, but the unusual thing about the child was his eyes. Green irises, no pupils and red sclera. Quite unusual, in his own opinion. The child seemed rather clueless at the events that were taking place; gazing mindlessly at the ANBU which were investing his parents' home. He turned those unusual eyes upon General Taishou, as if wanting to ask him a question.

"Eh?" grunted General Taishou.

"Why are all these people in our house? Did they lose something?" asked the child, surprisingly observant for one so young.

"Not them, kid," said his uncle, brushing his hand through his pitch-black hair. "Not them."

"Where's Mom and Dad? I want to talk to them," said his nephew.

"They're..." said General Taishou. "They're…away at the moment."

"When are they coming back?" asked the child, his eyes staring directly into his uncle's.

"Eh, they might be back soon, you can never really tell," said his uncle.

"Why? Where did they go?" asked his nephew.

"Where we'll all go at one point of time, I suppose," said the General.

The child seemed to not be able to process what that exactly meant, and he gave up trying to figure it out a few seconds later. Instead, he thumbed some sort of toy lying on the floor, a youthful smile on his tanned face, "I hope they get back soon; my birthday is in a month and Mom said she would cook my favorite food and Dad said he would take me to the park if I wanted to, and after that we were all going to—"

General Taishou felt his heart constrict as his nephew continued talking gleefully, bragging about all the wonderful things he would do with his now deceased parents when they arrive back home. When the child finished talking, still with a faint smile on his face, his uncle spoke up, "Until that day, though, you're coming to live with me. You liked my home, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did," lied his nephew, he rather disliked the place, but he did not want to upset his uncle. "But why do I have to live with you when Mom and Dad are going to come back?"

General Taishou was afraid he was going to say something like that. So he then proceeded to say, "Well, they aren't coming back for quite some time, kid. Until then, you're going to have to—"

"But you said they were going to come back soon, didn't yo—?" interrupted his nephew.

"Kakuzu. Don't interrupt me, you understand?" growled his uncle. He hated quite a few things, but one of the things that really pissed him off was when people interrupted him.

All was quiet for a few seconds, until General Taishou broke the silence, "Sorry about that, I don't like it when…look, there's going to be some troubled times ahead. We're going to have to look after each other as much as we can. If you scratch my back, I'll return the favor." General Taishou tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace than anything. His nephew seemed to understand the point, though, ran over to his scruffy uncle, and gave him a vicious hug. General Taishou didn't like hugging, children, or hugging children, but he didn't break away from his nephew. He knew how rough the days ahead would be, (heck, he was a military general for Takigakure, not a damn babysitter!) but he was determined to at least try.

Heck, what was the worst that could happen?

Blood soaked through Kakuzu's fishnet top, covering himself in his own bodily fluids. He grunted loudly, struggling not to scream as the intense pain of his injury jolted through him. He bent down quickly, keeping one hand on his wound, the other hand tightly on a kunai in his other hand. He speedily whipped his head left and right, trying to find the animal that gave him the injury. Through the trees of the dense forest he was in, it was hard to tell. But then a large, hulking silhouette became visible behind a large patch of trees, confirming Kakuzu's hunch that his attacked was still in the area. Closing his eyes, he attempted to sense the creature by its chakra, like how his uncle taught him to do quite a few years ago. As he was attempting to pick up his enemy's charkra, his attacker approached him from behind. Large, bulking, and dangerous, the bear waited to see if his victim would strike. When he didn't, the bear lunged, growling loud enough to wake up all the wildlife in the forest.

The bear was surprised when his victim lunged to the side, causing it to slam head-first into the trunk of a tree ahead. Then, without any hesitation, Kakuzu thrust the kunai elbow-deep into the bear's cranium, silencing its cries instantaneously. After the creature stopped struggling, its murdered checked the kill. Clean, not much blood at all, and pierced through the brain perfectly. Kakuzu would feel more proud if his side wasn't pumping out blood as much as it was. He quickly looked left and right, trying to find something he could prepare a tourniquet out of. The only thing he could think of was the bear's skin, but that would take precious time he probably didn't have. Nevertheless, he used his kunai to slice off a portion of the bear's skin, not as neatly as he would like but decent anyways, and after several agonizing minutes managed to make a half-decent tourniquet that he steadily wrapped around his midsection. After making sure the bleeding died down, he cut several long strips of flesh off the bear, stuffed them as well as he could into a pouch on his side, and started his trek back home.

The front door of General Taishou Hakui's cabin swung wide, the sound of thundering rain emitting from the outside. Through the door emerged Kakuzu, the bear skin tourniquet wrapped tightly around his torso. His uncle's eyebrow rose upwards as blood dripped onto the floor, and then Kakuzu slammed the door loudly, almost knocking over a vase near the entrance. Kakuzu steadily walked over to his uncle, reached his hand to his side, and threw his pouch onto the table in front of him. His uncle's eyebrow rose up further when he set eyes upon the meat filled, bloody pouch.

"What is this?" asked General Taishou, voice steely and severe.

"Dinner, sir," answered Kakuzu, his eyes looking directly at the ground.

"Dinner? Did I not specifically tell you to get rabbit?" asked his uncle. "Does this look like rabbit to you?"

"No, sir," answered his nephew.

"Then why did you bring me this filth? And why are you dripping your blood all over my floor?" said the General.

"Well, I ran into some trouble trying to find your rabbit, sir," answered Kakuzu, trying to keep his anger down.

"Continue."

"I managed to find a rabbit, but a bear attacked me on the way, sir. I had to fend it off, it struck me, and I thought—"

"Yes, what did you think? I didn't even think you were able to think, considering the fact you almost never obey what I tell you. I'm you're damn guardian, you know, and you must treat me with respect. Why, if your parents could see you now…Kakuzu, are you listening?" said his uncle angrily.

"Of course, sir," said Kakuzu.

"Humph. Anyway, this is the seventh time you didn't directly obey an order. For such, I will punish you by—"said the General before Kakuzu interrupted him.

"—By what, you're going to spank me?" asked Kakuzu sarcastically.

"—By going back out and hunt what I actually _told you_ to hunt. Clean up your blood on the way out," said his uncle, grimacing.

"What?! I'm not going to fucking—" started Kakuzu.

"I'm sorry, were you saying something?" his uncle gave Kakuzu a look that caused him to shut up instantly.

"…No."

"No what?"

"No, sir."

"Damn right."

Grumbling, Kakuzu tardily grabbed a dishtowel and wiped up all his bodily fluids off the floor, and disposed of the towel with silent anger. Without another word, he spun around, swung open the door, and slammed it hard enough to chip the paint. It's not as if he cared, though. He started walking back into the dense forest, not caring about fulfilling his uncle's wish.

Strolling through the thick forest which he's lived near for the past ten years, Kakuzu started thinking to himself. Only about four years ago, on his thirteenth birthday, his uncle told him the real reason why he's lived with him for such a long time. Because of his parent's death back when he was seven. He was devastated for the first few days, he did realize that he would never see them again, but he got quite used to it now. In fact, he hardly felt anything when talking about his parents or other such. He didn't know if that was normal or not, but honestly he didn't really care. His uncle used to be somewhat kind, or at least until he lost his job as General four years ago. Now, because he's gotten quite a bit old and thought of Kakuzu as more of a tool than an actual human being, he has merely been a mean of getting food and supplies and other such. Sometimes Kakuzu just wanted to get away from it all, perhaps go to the nearest village, Takigakure, and try to bluff his age and get into the militia, but he's always decided against it. He hated his uncle, but he had to rely on him to survive. He didn't like to rely on people, but he had to survive.

Eventually Kakuzu reached a clearing, which lead to a long, flowing river he knew lead back to Takigakure. He kneeled down a few feet away from the river, the soft trickle of the water strangely serene. He then proceeded to lie back, just staring up at the sky, almost all his negative feelings lost in the tranquil feel of the forest. He honestly really liked nature, it was almost always peaceful, quiet, and he could just think for as long as he wished. He really wasn't too sure what he liked to think about, he normally only thought about his current problems and his future. But really, what was the chance he even had a future? All he could see is that he would be the slave of his uncle until he died, and yet somehow he didn't think he would feel really 'free'. It's not like he had anywhere else to go, since his uncle has repeatedly explained that he was the last of his fami—

The silence was disturbed by the soft thump of footsteps.

Kakuzu jolted up immediately, prepared to attack whatever or whoever was approaching, but his hand stopped short of the kunai on his thigh when he saw who was there.

The figure was standing on the other side of the river, observing him as if he was some sort of special specimen or something similar. The figure was female, only about five foot and a half or so, with skin the color of snow and hair to match. Yet her eyes were a strange crimson color, which seemed to glow in the ominous night. She was adorned in a medium-length, flowing dress the color of her skin and hair, with a black umbrella in hand. Her bare feet were covered in dirt and other grime but that didn't take away from her overall image. She was certainly beautiful, but the gaze she was giving Kakuzu disturbed him. He almost wanted to say something, but no words would come to his mind. She obviously found his struggle to speak humorous, for she grinned slightly. He hasn't seen another shinobi in such long time besides his uncle that seeing one made him try to think of something to say. He thought and though until the first thing he thought of popped out of his mouth:

"Um…S'up?" the second the words came out of his mouth, he blushed and cursed at himself for his stupidity while the pale female giggled silently to herself. He was about to say something else, probably something even more stupid, but then a loud, shrill scream came from somewhere far behind him. He rapidly spun my head around, trying to find out where exactly the scream came from. Kakuzu turned my head back over to the pale female, only to find her gone. He wanted to stay to see if she would come back, but then another scream erupted, but cut abruptly short. He jumped up to his feet, his injured side aching with pain, and ran as fast as his legs would take him. He eventually reached the origin of the screams, and smelled the ungodly smell of something burning. But, when Kakuzu stepped through the trees to see what exactly was burning, he stopped dead in his tracts and stood gaping.

His uncle's house, General Taishou Hakui's, home was covered in flames, the glow from the fire illuminating the night. And the screams were coming from inside.

_Yes, I have thus returned. Now, for those who were fans of mine back when I was in the process of writing Hidan: Origins, I have currently postponed the series. Why, you may ask? Well, I plan on revising it a bit, change the style to slightly match my new one, that sort of thing. Anywho, I do indeed plan on continuing this, as long as I'm aware that there are actually people reading it. So, review if you don't mind, I certainly don't mind criticism if you have the positive kind. For those who want to know, I will try to publish new material/chapters for my fanfictions on Fridays and Sundays. Just a heads-up. Hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Kakuzu: Origins._


End file.
